Philippa Mein Smith

Philippa Mein Smith

University AssociateHistory and Classics

Professor Philippa Mein Smith was Professor of History in the School of Humanities from 2013 to 2017.

Previously she was Professor of History and Associate Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Canterbury.

Philippa is interested in Australian and New Zealand history, the Australian-New Zealand relationship, transnational history, and health history. Her achievements include A Concise History of New Zealand (Cambridge University Press, 2005, 2012) and A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific (Blackwell, 2000) with Donald Denoon.

Biography

Before joining UTAS, Philippa was Professor of History and Associate Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Canterbury, where she worked for 21 years. Her first academic appointment (1989-1991) was as a lecturer in economic history at Flinders University.

At Canterbury she established the New Zealand Australia Research Centre with Peter Hempenstall (now at the University of Newcastle), which was an output of a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden grant from 2003 to 2006 on connections between Australia and New Zealand since the 1880s. A further output was the book, Philippa Mein Smith, Peter Hempenstall and Shaun Goldfinch, Remaking the Tasman World (Canterbury University Press, 2008).

In 1998, Philippa took a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Centre at Bellagio in Italy, where she worked with Professor Donald Denoon from ANU to write A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific for the Blackwell History of the World series. This book reoriented her interests from health history to the history of the region.

Connect with Philippa Mein Smith

Expertise

Australian-New Zealand relations

Understanding this region

New Zealand history

Australian history

Maternal and child health and welfare

Research Themes

Philippa's research aligns to the University's research themes of Creativity, Culture and Society, and Better Health. Her research interests include understanding the Australia-New Zealand relationship, which is Australia's closest, understanding this region, and women's and children's health. Her research into historical connections between Australia and New Zealand has led to work on mapping Australasia, New Zealand and Australian Federation, compulsory arbitration as a case study of policy transfer, trans-Tasman trade, cultural links, Australia as New Zealand's western frontier, the influence of New Zealand on Australia, and the 'NZ' in Anzac. She has also researched the transnational influences of Dr Truby King and Truby King nurses on infant welfare, including in Tasmania.

Collaboration

Philippa has been involved in six collaborative projects involving partnerships in Australia and New Zealand. The first, with Assoc Prof Lionel Frost of Monash University, concerned infant mortality, suburbia and home ownership in Australian cities, and led to the award of the H. J. Dyos prize for the best article in urban history. The second collaboration with Prof Donald Denoon and Dr Marivic Wyndham at the Australian National University was to write A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific for the Blackwell History of the World series. The third related to the Marsden funded project 'Anzac Neighbours: 100 years of multiple ties between New Zealand and Australia' with Prof Peter Hempenstall (now at University of Newcastle) and Prof. Shaun Goldfinch (USP). This project led to the co-authored book Remaking the Tasman World (Canterbury University Press, 2008) and the establishment of the New Zealand Australia Research Centre (NZARC) at the University of Canterbury. Fourth, Philippa led with Prof Peter Beilharz of La Trobe University a series of collaborative workshops in Christchurch and Melbourne involving postgraduates and researchers at the University of Canterbury and the Thesis Eleven Centre at La Trobe University, on the Antipodes. The fifth area of collaboration entailed collaborations as Director of NZARC. The latest concerns rethinking the colonial architecture of the Tasman world with colleagues from UTAS, Melbourne, Sydney, and Edinburgh.

Current projects

Current projects include papers on the following:

Relocating Australia

The sealing industry and the architecture of the Tasman world

Tensions over apples between Tasmania and New Zealand

Her latest collaborative project is titled 'Globalisation and Entrepreneurship in the South Pacific: Reframing Australian and New Zealand Architecture, 1800-1850'. This is an inter-disciplinary five-year collaboration between academics at the University of Tasmania, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, University of Sydney, and University of Edinburgh. This project employs trans-colonial perspectives to recalibrate the ways in which the early colonial histories of Australian and New Zealand architecture and the built environment are understood and represented.

Fields of Research

New Zealand History (210311)

Australian History (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History) (210303)

Historical Studies (210399)

Studies in Human Society (169999)

British History (210305)

North American History (210312)

Design History and Theory (120301)

Research Objectives

Expanding Knowledge in History and Archaeology (970121)

Cultural Understanding (959999)

Understanding New Zealand's Past (950505)

Understanding Australia's Past (950503)

Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society (970116)

Understanding Europe's Past (950504)

Expanding Knowledge in Built Environment and Design (970112)

Understanding the Past of the Americas (950506)

Publications

Philippa's publishing history is reflected in her books. The most important are Maternity in Dispute and Mothers and King Baby, about mothers and babies in New Zealand and Australia; the co-authored A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific; and the Cambridge Concise History of New Zealand. The latter two show the breadth of her work.

Mein Smith PL, 'Gerald Chaudron, New Zealand in the League of Nations: The Beginnings of an Independent Foreign Policy, 1919-1939', Australian Historical Studies, 44, (1) pp. 155-156. (2013) [Review Single Work]

Mein Smith PL, 'Why was John McEwen a friend to New Zealand? Trans-Tasman and European integration in the 1960s', Regional Integration and Identity in the Pacific: A Colloquium, 19th Decemeber, Christchurch (2011) [Non Refereed Conference Paper]

Co-PI on Marsden grant, Royal Society of New Zealand: 'Anzac Neighbours: 100 years of multiple ties between NZ and Australia', NZ$345,000 (with Peter Hempenstall and Shaun Goldfinch) (2003-06)

University of Canterbury research grant, NZ$15,000 (2002)

Flinders University research grant, $8,000 (1990)

Funding Summary

Number of grants

2

Total funding

$350,108

Projects

Globalisation, entrepreneurship and the South Pacific: Architecture and the Tasman World (2017)$5,108

Description

Globalisation, entrepreneurship and the South Pacific (GESP) is conceived as an interdisciplinary research project that draws on expertise from history, business history, architectural history, cartography and digital humanities. It will employ transnational and trans-colonial perspectives to recalibrate the way the early colonial histories of Australasian architecture and the built environment are understood and represented.

Research Supervision

Philippa has supervised 27 postgraduate theses to completion. She has supervised a wide range of topics, from gardening in Christchurch to nuclear New Zealand, the cultural influence of America, Anzac peacekeeping, and the migration of Tasmanians to New Zealand. Several projects supervised were inter-disciplinary. Two recent examples of successful completions of this nature are: